pop song for us rejects

writer, professional fan, adult girl, pinko

[peterpumpkinhead]

a few things to consider about Nanon's upcoming trip to Russia

Russia is raging a senseless war against Ukraine that is unjustifiable and devastating. There is a political dimension to Nanon's event in Russia and people, especially the ones who are directly affected by this war, have every right to be upset. I am of both Ukrainian and Russian descent on my mother's side and have distant family who fled Ukraine. Seeing this all play out from afar has been horrific, so I can't imagine what it must be like to live it out. I say every person directly affected can express their anger and I will not tell them not to do that, ever.

GMMtv is not exceptionally evil or able to, alone, transform Thailand's diplomatic ties with any country. It is a capitalist company and its main and often sole purpose is to accumulate capital. To ask question's like "isn't this company queer friendly?" is naive and I hope we can get over this. No company is friendly, because no company is a friend. The WORKERS within the company might be (and often are), but the bigger the conglomerate, the more subservient it will be to the bottom line and that transcends any individual's opinion or desire. Every company, as well as any system, is riddled with contradictions. The workers themselves are not to blame most of the time.

The United States has been devastating the world with its imperialist agenda, destabilizing countries for generations, bombing people, stealing resources and implementing puppet regimes. It ruined my country's democracy and helped install a brutal dictatoship that lasted decades and we're still suffering the consequences. If we can handle being upset about this but also understand why an artist might perform in Washington D.C. or New York, it means we can hold multiple thoughts and feelings at the same time and that's probably for the best. The brutality of the American regime is not smaller just because we're used to it.

My country (Brazil) has directly condemned the Israeli occupation of Gaza, yet maintains diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, effectively funding the genocide in Palestine. China still trades weapons with Israel, Thailand is a close ally of the country. It is noble and necessary to want artists to avoid touching the grounds of territories that are complicit in atrocities, but it is prudent to manage our expectations. In a capitalist imperialist global economy, that kind of purity and coherence is often not possible.

There are citizens of Russia who are queer, anti-government, oppressed and silenced, and maybe this is a small moment for them to find community and I will take some solace in that.

[peterpumpkinhead]

Well, it was cancelled.

Honestly? Probably for the best. But my opinions still stand.

[leatherjacketeddie]

We have lost the meaning of queerbait

[leatherjacketeddie]

Just because what you wanted didn't happen, doesn't mean it's queerbaiting. It is now being used an excuse when the ship you want didn't get together. Queerbaiting has to do with marketing.

[shamebats]

Queerbait: A cookbook that you learned about from ads with pictures of people eating tasty looking soups and the author's social media posts about how soup lovers are going to love it, proves to have no soup recipes.

Not queerbait: A cookbook has no soup recipes. You assumed there would be some based on vibes and wishful thinking. No soups were ever advertised or promised.

Also not queerbait: A cookbook that was advertised as containing soup recipes has soup recipes but not for the types of soups you like.

[peterpumpkinhead]

Yup.

Also - the term was created in context: American media in the 2000s and 2010s, where it was incredibly taboo to have queer characters in mainstream media, but the awareness and advocacy around this issue was growing dramatically, so companies were eager to bank on the queer audience's eagerness for queer stories. Such eagerness often resulted in a lot of persistent attention and loyalty to a piece of media.

Of course anti-LGBT bigotry still exists all over the world (and is unfortunately growing in many places where there were significant and recent advances for queer safety and representation, which makes people's anxiety around this theme very understandable), but queerbaiting is very contingent on a significant scarcity and the exploitation of queer longing. This still applies to many contexts, but is not appropriate to all.

Finally - if there is an openly queer character in the piece of media, the media is not queerbaiting you. The absence of romance may be frustrating, but it is not a betrayal. You might be critical of how a queer character is presented, of how a queer storyline is developed, but you are disappointed, not duped. Managing expectations is an important life skill.

(PS: Real people cannot queerbait and I cannot even begin to talk about this, because it boils my blood when the speculation around real person's sexuality is dragged into this mess)

[peterpumpkinhead]

a few things to consider about Nanon's upcoming trip to Russia

Russia is raging a senseless war against Ukraine that is unjustifiable and devastating. There is a political dimension to Nanon's event in Russia and people, especially the ones who are directly affected by this war, have every right to be upset. I am of both Ukrainian and Russian descent on my mother's side and have distant family who fled Ukraine. Seeing this all play out from afar has been horrific, so I can't imagine what it must be like to live it out. I say every person directly affected can express their anger and I will not tell them not to do that, ever.

GMMtv is not exceptionally evil or able to, alone, transform Thailand's diplomatic ties with any country. It is a capitalist company and its main and often sole purpose is to accumulate capital. To ask question's like "isn't this company queer friendly?" is naive and I hope we can get over this. No company is friendly, because no company is a friend. The WORKERS within the company might be (and often are), but the bigger the conglomerate, the more subservient it will be to the bottom line and that transcends any individual's opinion or desire. Every company, as well as any system, is riddled with contradictions. The workers themselves are not to blame most of the time.

The United States has been devastating the world with its imperialist agenda, destabilizing countries for generations, bombing people, stealing resources and implementing puppet regimes. It ruined my country's democracy and helped install a brutal dictatoship that lasted decades and we're still suffering the consequences. If we can handle being upset about this but also understand why an artist might perform in Washington D.C. or New York, it means we can hold multiple thoughts and feelings at the same time and that's probably for the best. The brutality of the American regime is not smaller just because we're used to it.

My country (Brazil) has directly condemned the Israeli occupation of Gaza, yet maintains diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, effectively funding the genocide in Palestine. China still trades weapons with Israel, Thailand is a close ally of the country. It is noble and necessary to want artists to avoid touching the grounds of territories that are complicit in atrocities, but it is prudent to manage our expectations. In a capitalist imperialist global economy, that kind of purity and coherence is often not possible.

There are citizens of Russia who are queer, anti-government, oppressed and silenced, and maybe this is a small moment for them to find community and I will take some solace in that.

[undeadhousewife]

[fairycosmos]

i just feel like friendship is one of the most expansive and beautiful forms of love you can ever experience and i wish we gave it more credit

[anistarrose]

my futile wish is for people to understand that "sex scenes in movies/TV don't have to serve the plot and can genuinely just be for pleasure" and "sex-repulsed people are allowed to complain about how rare it is for media made for adults like them to be something they can enjoy completely" are both true statements. unfortunately society hates both sex and people who don't like sex, so everyone gets far too defensive about any sex or lack thereof in fiction to actually have this conversation

[lestatgothic]

this gothic princess omgggg

[oneheadtoanother]

[peterpumpkinhead]

sky wongravee and nani hirunkit deserve, at the very least:

to lead films with a theatrical release. come on, gmmtv, you can do it!

to each have independent careers where they both can shine individually and have other scene partners

come back to their projects as a pair with no issues

to be in a political thriller

to be in a gothic romance horror

to be in a bisexual throuple plot!!!! stop being cowards ql fans!!

to play villains

to play antiheroes with no clear redemption arc

that's my laundry list of things that I would like to see (in my Mo'Nique voice)

[peterpumpkinhead]

Wu also turned out to be way better than I expected politically speaking, which is a huge deal for GMMTV and for the Thai mainstream media landscape (some Thai shows that I think were very well-made and I liked a whole lot, like Mad Unicorn and Shine, were quite... slippery in that regard).

I totally understand, there's just no escaping the cultural hegemon, especially when it comes to bigger productions. Although I'm very eclectic and don't need to agree with something to see its value for what it is, it's still so weird to reconcile such a great show like Not Me with its own anti-capitalist protagonists and the constant interruption of the scene by the ubiquitous product placement.

So the fact that Wu surprised me positively is yet another point for this show! One of the best ones GMMtv ever made.

At this point, I must beg the Heavens & Earth to pair together P'Nuchy with Sky and Nani.

Just imagine! Just imagine what we could get!

[free-my-mindd]

[pudulogy]

[alethialia]

At a time when Netflix is getting roundly criticized for forcing its shows to treat the audience like we have all of two brain cells to rub together, The Vampire Lestat is out here volleying everything from 70s gay references to 1700s Dutch Republic references at the speed of light while saying, "You don't get it? Well, that's a fucking you problem."

And I love that for us.

[maryoliveoil]

Today I learned that the creator of “Widow’s Bay” was The Babadook meme girl

[maybe-boys-do-love]

GMMTV is not the big bad. It is not the BL monopolizer. It does not make trash tv. It does not have bad writing. It does not have bad acting. It does not have it out for any of its actors. It’s not just trying to get quick cash. It’s just all a bit more complicated than that.

GMMTV compared to many other companies has a business model that is stable—the employees are gonna get their money and typically have plenty of opportunities to work and be promoted, which is not a promise in the industry if you follow the news. It’s big but there are much worse things happening with entertainment companies in Thailand, which is why so many actors seem more than happy to jump on board.

GMMTV is a subsidiary of ONE Enterprise, a media monopoly in Thailand, but gmmtv is not the monopoly itself. (ThamePo incredibly seems to call out the complicated ubiquitous power of ONE.) This distinction doesn’t exclude gmmtv from benefiting from that monopoly, but you’ll also need to include Change and Open Label (which manages DaouOffroad among others) as part of the monopoly when you discuss it, which starts to get in the way of the idea the there’s a specific BL monopoly. Having one company within a conglomerate dominate a genre is just not exactly how a monopoly functions tbh. And P’Tha is just the head of GMMTV, not ONE, so he’s making money moves but not at the very top level.

GMMTV’s demographic is technically teens and young adults, but the team definitely recognizes it has a much broader reach if they’re doing even the slightest market data (which they definitely are). But if you don’t like it, you might just not be the demographic. Media catering to younger viewers and their emotional needs, however, does not make it any worse than adult-oriented media that depicts more grit or explicit moral complexity. They’re just different styles.

Not every show on GMMTV is good because it puts out more shows than other companies. It has a responsibility to air series on specific television channels. This also means its business model is different, and it puts out a mix of shows with different levels of investment—that’s typical for a company that’s operating like a television network. Every year GMMTV has some clunkers, but it also every year has some series with some of the most layered writing in all of BL. There was a controversy over the meager pay (relative to Thai industry standards) offered for a writing contest a couple years ago, the winner of which is now being adapted into Love’s Echoes.

Thai media has an overall history in prioritizing looks over acting. It’s not just GMMTV. However, GMMTV was an early adopter in the industry of acting classes and acting coaches, after Nadao. Many series are filmed at a rapid pace, and so we don’t always get the actors’ most involved performances possible. Partly, that’s the nature of television over film, but some directors and actors at gmmtv as elsewhere do prioritize quality over quantity. Nuchy, Jojo+Ninew, Aof Noppharnach, Mui, and Dome Jarupat are all known for more elaborate rehearsal processes—And the upcoming director for the company jprang (Muteluv: Hello is this Luck, You Maniac) also works as an acting coach. Directors can and often do ask the actors to go through audition processes before agreeing to work on a series with them, too. That’s somewhat hampered by investment ties that travel along with actors based on popularity, but that’s not unique to gmmtv.

At least for the men and kathoey performers and staff, gmmtv has demonstrated itself overall to be a very positive and queer-friendly work environment, especially as of the executive shuffle in the 2020s. There have been female actors who have expressed dissatisfaction with their treatment at the company (Fah and more recently hinted at by Piploy)—and I mean treatment beyond optic issues like the kneeling incident—but the immediate termination of a director in 2025 after rude comments about MilkLove were discovered on his Facebook suggests this might hopefully be shifting.

GMMTV more than any other BL company seems to prioritize financial stability. It tries to diversify its content and streaming relationships as much as possible, and also puts a lot of effort into earnings through means outside of just series. GMMTV does not have a history of taking risks with its series. Another studio will typically need to prove a genre approach is financially feasible before gmmtv will go for something new. That seems to be less out of trend-hopping, though, and more out of fear of failure, because once they see an opportunity they often have writers and actors who have already been expressing a desire to work in that genre jump right on it and put their whole ass into it.

You don’t have to like gmmtv. There are absolutely issues it has as a company, and I’m sure more weaknesses and strengths will emerge or become apparent as the years go on. However, the unfounded demonization of the company just because it’s the largest and most prominent in BL is soooo boring. If you wanna hate and/or celebrate, get detailed and make sure your comparisons hold across industry standards, babes.

[brian-kinney-apologist]

I'm gonna post this now for no reason at all :)

[minotauri]

This half man show… is it queer bait or should I watch it?

queerbaiting is the least of your worries

[minotauri]

[about to be dropped into the shark tank] hey is the water cold?

[peterpumpkinhead]

y'know what, I can always circle this weird phenomenon back to the depth of trauma that Supernatural girlies haven't quite processed to this day and how it led to people using a word that came from critical analysis of western 2000s media and turning it into a virtue signaling tool to vent overall frustration with any media or real-life person that deviates from expectations of what queer looks like. god forbids said queerness isn't the "good kind" (simple to understand, beauty-standard-adhering and comfortable in its predictability).